About

The EcozoicTimes.Com is a news  source and resource center for the emerging Ecozoic Era.

Explore this Site

How to experience this site: Set yourself and your computer to “Garden Mode” to best view and experience this site. Please check back often to see how it has grown and changed.

This website was begun October 27, 2010.

Instead of presenting this website as a perfectly finished object, as if it were a static “thing” (O.K., I know, even “things” are not static), I have chosen to “go live” with this website as it is in development.

Please think of it as a garden, always with some seedlings in the nursery, some plants bearing fruit. As it grows, and with each visit, it will be slightly different. Different sections will grow at different rates and will fruit at different times. You may stop and nibble on a few things that look good, or you may find so many delicious things that you have to use your apron to carry them all home! No matter what, I hope you and the Earth Community will be well-fed.

And, please be in touch if you would like to help cultivate this garden!

Or, think of this as a construction site that slowly evolves from ideas (to blue prints) into a handsome structure. You are welcome to view all parts of this construction site – but please bring your hard hat!

Editorial Philosophy and Policy

We intend to stay oriented toward the definition of “Ecozoic” offered by Thomas Berry.

“The Ecozoic era is a geologic era of mutually enhancing human-Earth relations” (glossary of The Universe Story)

We live in very dark, destructive, biocidal, geocidal times, with no guarantee of survival. Having a past does not guarantee a future.

However, we are the living edge of a 13.7 billion year Universe-energy creative thrust, and a 4.5 billion year Earth-energy creative thrust that seems silly to gamble against. So, we do what we can, while we can, to prepare for the dawning, life-sustaining, new geologic era.

As a human family we are making great changes. Joanna Macy says it this way. We are doing three things simultaneously:

slowing down and stoping all the destruction,
inventing and building life-sustaining new ways,
making a deep shift in values (and cosmology) to permanently support the new ways

EcozoicTimes.Com recognizes the need to stop destruction, and invent new widgets and ways. Yes, yes, yes, we must support the local ecology center, and compost, and insulate the house, and recycle, and ride the bike, and change-out the light bulbs, and grow food, and protest… We celebrate, support, and are guided by those who are drawn to that type of Great Work. Ecological and environmental practices are necessary but not sufficient.

Our focus is farther “up stream”, on the deeper values and cosmology that creates the widgets and ways in the first place.We are guided by big, deep structures like archetypes, and innate evolutionary powers and forces. We celebrate the unique subjectivity of each “thing” and being, but we always try to link it to the mysterious, creative forces from whence it came. And to which it will return.

We believe humans are as integral and important to Earth’s thriving as the Colorado River of North America, the tropical rain forests of Brazil, or the snow leopard of Asia.

While we celebrate the man, Thomas Berry, who brought us these insights, we also celebrate how his ideas are moving forward in the world.

Submission Ideas and topics we need addressed – just a few – there are more!

  • how have the visions of Thomas Berry activated you (your organization, your art, your organizing, etc)
  • what is the difference between environmentalism, sustainability, and Ecozoic
  • examples of mutually enhancing human-Earth relations
  • examples of increased complexity, subjectivity, communion, cooperation
  • examples of Ecozoic living
  • resources
  • what is meant by Thomas’s “four wisdoms”
  • explain “interiority” and how it relates to spirituality and the power/dynamics of the universe
  • how “mutual” must “mutual” be to be considered “Ecozoic”
  • Universe Story, New Cosmology, New Story
  • The person & contributions of Thomas Berry in relation to the Universe Story in relation to the Ecozoic Era

Who – Editor

Edited and Maintained by Allysyn Kiplinger, M.A.

 A native of the San Francisco bay area Allysyn Kiplinger was born into a Unitarian-Universalist, folk singing, animal-loving, co-op shopping, summer-traveling, horticultural family, with 12 cousins on one side and 11 on the other – who lived all over the United States. Traveling from California to Maryland every summer with her mom to visit family, she grew-up crossing the beautiful North American continent, either watching it mysteriously glide past from an airplane window, or driving across it while camping. Two different ways to directly experience the same land.

She studied Anthropology, Women’s Studies, and Folklore at the University of California, Berkeley (B.A., 1985) while living in the student co-ops (OY!);  was the 1990 Earth Day Chair for Oakland, California; and studied at Schumacher College in Devon, England from 1992-1993. She earned an M.A. in 2004 (begun in 1994) in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness at California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) with Dr. Brian Swimme.

Self-employed since 1985, she has been a printer, a natural soap maker, a green-building renovator, and a board member of ecological non profits. Her current passion is extending the practical cosmological vision of Thomas Berry. Applied cosmology and environmental philosophy are the organizing passions of her life.

EcozoicTimes.Com was begun in late October 2010 under clear skies and a waning gibbous moon by Allysyn as a way to fulfill a dream.

Personal Statement:

“For years – decades! – I’ve been studying with great thinkers at conferences, classes, and workshops all over the world who are attempting to understand and articulate ‘our current moment between stories’, as Thomas would say.

From all these people, places, and events I’ve been collecting resources, books, booklets, directories, photos, art, music, audio tapes, fliers – which I always dreamed of organizing into some sort of resource center. My dream has become a reality with the loving support of friends, the miracle of the internet, and easy-to-use programs like Word Press – the modern equivalent of a printing press, a megaphone, a soap box, a can of paint, a mimeograph machine – as well as endless direction from my higher power, Creative Spirit.

I am concerned that the ephemeral nature of the digital world would evaporate from reality if catastrophe destroyed our civilization – making the wisdom and vision that has begun to be collected here unavailable to archaeologists of the future (remember – I studied anthropology). However, my web wizard D.R. suggested I not worry about that future just yet and instead focus on getting the word out the the current batch of living folks. That seems like a reasonable direction – for now!”

Mascots and Walking-Thinking Companions

Nova the Dog (b.~1997, adopted 2003, d. 2012), Kosmo the Cat (b.~2005, he adopted us 2007), Terra the Dog (b.~1999, adopted 2009), all three together

What does Ecozoic mean?

The term “Ecozoic era” was coined by Thomas Berry in conversation with Brian Swimme for their book The Universe Story in order to describe the geologic era that Earth is entering – when humans live in a mutually enhancing relationship with Earth and the Earth community.

Earth is entering a new geologic era because the previous one, the Cenozoic era (spanning the last ~65 million years), has been terminated by the western-style industrialized human community in the late 19th, 20th, and early 21st century.

While not intending to change the course of evolution or change the chemistry or large scale cycles of the planet, we have indeed done so. We have been, as a civilization, simply paying attention to our own human needs, acting out of what Dr. Brian Swimme calls “local mind”.

While many individuals of the last centuries have been aware of the effects our way of life have had on the Earth community, as a society, and now a global civilization we have been unable to see those effects. We have not historically been paying attention to how our activities have impacted the larger community of life and those structures and systems that support life.

The evolutionary dynamics that created Earth now include the conscious and unconscious actions of the human family.

Advisory Council

Betty-Ann Kissilove – Moral Support & Editing – http://greatballoffirethebook.com

Paul C. Hoffman – Moral Support, Visioning, Financial Chutzpa – http://www.earthseals.com

Dennis Rivers – Moral Support & Web Wizardry – http://www.NewConversations.net